


A Scheduled Mental Breakdown

by seasalt (lawboy)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Gen, No Plot/Plotless, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23747683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lawboy/pseuds/seasalt
Summary: Had bad anxiety a month ago and vented about it by writing about Blue Zircon. Just a plotless character study.
Kudos: 13





	A Scheduled Mental Breakdown

Blue tore her fingers into the flesh of her arms, lightning bolts of panic seizing her muscles solid snapped sharp and unnaturally in-line; she was rigid, a telephone pole head-down, staring straight into nowhere. If she could rip her hair out she would. If she could crush herself to pulp by squeezing too hard, she would've been blissfully non-conscious by now.

She couldn't hear but static; couldn't see but static; couldn't think, feel taste touch but metal static, sharp and tingling the slightest snap of a whip against her internal everything. Nothing made sense. She wanted to break herself to pieces.

Air rose like vomit in her throat, hacked out until blood tinged her tongue— choked back down, throat narrowed to a slit, and she gasped and gasped and gasped and nothing came, her chest burnt and she screamed now instead of letting out air, moaned in pure self-hating agony instead of taking it in.

No, she was useless. Always had been. Oh, someone shatter her— worthless miserable scrounging stuttering stumbling half-empty wreck of a shell of an empty void— she absorbed joy and sunlight and twisted it until it was nothing, like her.

Nothing like her.

She wrung her arms, tugged her coat to dissipation, cravat and collar that coiled and tightened on her throat like a serpent. Just the jumpsuit now, cloying clinging electric shrinkwrap on her skin; she was tingling all over. She wanted to die. Death would be better death was mindful, empty loving silence devoid of this emotional hydrogen bomb ionising her photons until her whole body trembled, all over, violent little storm dripping sweat like carbon rain. No, she was useless. No, she should be dead by now.

She couldn't pry her hands from herself; _rigor mortis,_ they called this tightening, when the muscles froze in a vice-lock on whatever they held when death approached, took the breath and the spirit but not the cold, hard, useless garbage that made up every other form. Rotten meat eating meat, brittle iron shaved calcium and caustic green bile. That's all that they were— garbage. Not like them, not beautiful. Not starlight glitter on a plain black sheet, crushed velvet for the genteel and a trash bag for her.

No, she _was_ garbage.

Zircons were made to be careful, rational, cool-tempered and even of hand, little paragons of logic little balancing scale girls. Mentally poised, well-adjusted— someone tipped a hand awry when they grew her, gave her too much deference, too much fear and flighty-tongued rambling and softness-weakness and sensitivity to pain in everyone, especially herself. Now she was a broken model; return to sender with warranty attached. Some of them had been worse than her and they'd been smashed to pieces right in front of her, five minutes into the rest of her life. Something she had never lost was their agony, a quick and blank-faced dissipation of their love and soul and value. It would be her if she couldn't act _normal_. It would be her, laid out all four limbs stretched to cracking as a fifth soldier brought their weapon down and split her into slivers of glassy crystal. It would be her if she couldn't hide her mental defect from others.

Little timer in the back of her head told her how many more seconds she had to fall apart. It was funny, a scheduled mental breakdown. Back from court and ten minutes to spare, to go cry and lose her senses to a mental icepick of repressed trauma and tension and hiccupped breaths she'd kept so steady for so long. She was always on the verge of it. Every second of every day; on cue she could descend into a speechless bawling mess, and on cue she could sweep herself back together. She could be silent, cry silent and suffocate silent. Or when the rare opportunity came, she could scream until her voice gave out. Nothing ever felt better, but it kept her semi-stable. Without her little 'glitch-outs', she wouldn't be able to work at all.

Last seconds draining from her fingers, she tried to come back to. Dried eyes. Let go. Blank mind. Let go of that too. Back into her work clothes, eyes closed and every effort expended on getting her aching chest under control.

Four seconds.

She was a Zircon. She was logic.

Three.

She wasn't broken. She could do her job. She _would_ do her job.

Two.

She was a Zircon, and- she was breathing-

One.

And she was breathing she was breathing she was breathing she was


End file.
